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Source: The post is based on the article “The Bharat 6G vision document: how India plans to lead telecommunication tech” published in The Hindu on 3rd April 2023.
Syllabus: GS 3 – Science and Technology
Relevance: About 6G Vision Document
News: The Prime Minister of India has recently unveiled the Bharat 6G Vision Document.
Why did the government put out a 6G vision document?
Assuming Leadership: The government wants to increase India’s dominance in wireless data usage and take the lead in establishing 6G standards globally.
It will be done through encouraging local manufacturing of telecom, supporting Indian companies and engineers in international discussions around standardization.
Avoiding Delays: The government doesn’t want to delay or stay behind the other countries in rolling out 6G as it did in 5G. For instance, 5G came in India years after countries like South Korea and the United States started using it.
Addressing the Demand: Frequencies increase in newer generations of networks. Hence, with the advent of 5G and 6G technologies, lower frequencies in 4G networks may not be able to match the demand for traffic.
Therefore, the government is focusing on 6G to address the demand and make people have access to better frequencies.
Developing R&D: The government wants to support research in the field of 6G technologies. It will be done through leveraging talent in academia and companies. An apex body will be set up to guide these groups through roadblocks.
Achieve connectivity goals: 6G technology will help the government in achieving connectivity goals.
For instance, ensuring that every person has access to a minimum of 100 Mbps of broadband, giving every gram panchayat access to half a terabit per second of connectivity, and installing over 50 million internet devices across the nation—13 per square kilometer.
Must Read: Telecom secretary asks C-DoT to work on 6G, launches Quantum Communication Lab
How are other countries approaching 6G?
Japan and Germany are working together from fundamental technologies to demonstrations on 6G technology.
What will be the benefit of 6G and what are the associated concerns?
6G will make websites load faster, videos to look better, and files to download faster than the 5G technology. However, businesses and governments are still figuring out how to best use 5G technology.
Further, the vision document states that satellite constellations will connect to base stations and telecom towers, thereby integrating networks and expanding them into rural areas.
However, solutions to provide connectivity to rural areas already exist in other forms. For instance, satellite internet in remote areas can be provided by instantly granting administrative clearance to firms like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Bharti Airtel-backed OneWeb.
Hence, with the advent of satellite technologies, providing internet connectivity to rural areas is no longer a constraint.
